Istwa Across the Water: Haitian History, Memory, and the Cultural Imagination by Toni Pressley-Sanon (review)

In her provocative and engaging analysis of "the work of re-membering Africa to its diaspora," Toni Pressley-Sanon interrogates what she refers to as Haiti's "secret history" of Vodou (119). The book focuses on how a number of contemporary religious and cultural practices have inextricable ties to traditions in Dahomey (present-day Republic of Benin) and Kôngo, the major points of African departure of many of the enslaved laborers that ended up in Saint-Domingue, as well as to the nation's history itself. In addition to treating connections among these three geographical points, Pressley-Sanon frames her analysis around three theoretical anchors that include Kamau Braithwaite's concept of tidalectics, the sacred twins or Marasa of Vodou belief, and the Haitian term istwa.

"Encompassing both history and story and facilitated by memory," istwa is a Kreyol idea central to the study's interdisciplinary approach to understanding Haiti's difficult past of enslavement, slavery, and colonization (5). Complicating traditional approaches to history, the term proves instrumental, both to inserting Vodou "as the project of thought" in the nation's past but also in formulating three overarching goals: encouraging an engagement of "alter/native ways of exploring" history and culture, contributing to the "ongoing work of throwing away and gathering" histories, and advocating for viewing Haitian history, memory, and culture through spiritual practices (7, 21–22). Although some historians may struggle with this less than orthodox approach, that may be precisely the point. As Gina Ulysse argues, it is crucial that there are "new narratives for Haiti;" this study points to the ways such analysis can begin to connect the present with a difficult and often hidden past and allow for the "creative regeneration" of such narratives (145).

As evidenced by the title, the Atlantic Ocean proves a central thread in Pressley-Sanon's work, both in its physical linking of the diaspora of the enslaved to an ancestral home and in its theoretical "ebb and flow." This structure provides a frame for "re-membering the parts to the whole" construction of the nation's past. Moving "across the water" as the analysis unfolds, Pressley-Sanon provides a powerful reminder that we cannot divorce history from the multiple and sometimes conflicting stories we tell about the past, empirically true or not, and that belief systems, like Vodou, are central to how we understand collective histories, particularly among the African Diaspora. Her work uses the Marasa Twa of Vodou as an "important lens" to appreciate the interconnectedness of oral and written history and link them to "visual, dramatic, and musical arts" (141). As part of the "re-sutoring" of the Haitian people and their narrative, the sacred twins and their invocation of completeness provide a spiritual mirror for this interdisciplinary and creative approach. Even though such "re-sutoring" is obviously a gargantuan task impossible in a single study, the book provides insight into how responses to "the so-called natural disasters that have plagued Haiti in recent years," the production of the Haitian artist collective Atis Rezistans, zombification, and Dahomey slavery "crossing texts" might be knitted together—both conceptually and methodologically—to expose the silences or secrets of the Haitian past (119).

As many scholars point out, the Haitian narrative stands at the center of the African Diaspora, holding lessons for a diverse range of intellectuals. At the same time, tackling such complex ideas and processes can prove challenging. The work presents insightful approaches for scholars of religious and cultural practices and the history of enslavement and colonization in and beyond Haiti. Anthropologists, literary scholars, cultural critics, and historians across the study of the Americas should find multiple aspects of this work engaging and useful. However, combining historiography, the study of memory, and the roots of religious practice with the history of enslavement, Saint-Domingue/Haiti, and the Black Diaspora can...